We probably grill out 3-5 days a week and just love the way food tastes when cooked on the grill. Want to see one of the coolest things I saw online today. Check out these outdoor kitchens. I WANT ONE BAD.

BUT our backyard does not look like the these in any way. Our grill is just sitting outside by our back door. I would love to have an amazing outdoor kitchen like one of these. The best thing in my opinion would be all of the cabinets and just having all the cooking tools right there. Right now I have to bring everything outside every time we grill. Since we grill so much that is a lot of walking back and forth from the house to the grill with all the utensils and grill tools. If we had an outdoor kitchen like this everything could be stored right by the grill. That would be heaven.

Finally, look at the COOL swim up bar found here. That would be taking my outdoor dream yard to a whole new level. A pool and an outdoor kitchen … a dream, oh what a dream!

What I have found about shopping online is this. If you really look around the net and do endless advanced Google searches you can eventually find sites that make buying the stuff you need (or want) easier. While that works I found an easier way today. And it was right in front of me all of the time. When i finally got there I had to laugh.

I have well documented on this blog our recent furniture purchases and ENDLESS other ongoing home improvements. And when I find websites I like I feel the need to tell others about them. Today while looking for a new washing machine (since ours finally made a loud noise 2 days ago, and then a whine, and then just stopped alltogether) I found (more…)

Some time ago and on one of my blogs I wrote about a new garden we created at our house. It has a really nice little stone wall, a variety of colorful and flowering plants, a stone bird bath, and a bird feeder. You can click on the thumbnail to the right to see a picture of it.

But almost immediately after doing all the landscaping work we noticed a few other new additions to our  yard also - mainly some 4 legged little critters that fell in love with our new yard. Within days the squirrels moved in! They were everywhere. Running along the fence, climbing into the bird feeder, (more…)

It is pretty amazing how long most people will go without purchasing new furniture. The other day we realized that our current bedrooms set, which had come with me into the relationship, was ALMOST 20 years old. Even worse it was something I had inherited from my previous marriage. It was obviously time for a change.

In addition the old current bedroom furniture was legitimately beat up and nicked in many places from multiple moves. Living in North Carolina, the unofficial furniture capital of the country, we have an incredible amount of stores all around us. So we set off early in the day on to look at different furniture locations and try to find anything that we both liked. Hours and hours we spent going from store to store looking at many different bedroom sets. By the middle of the day I was tired, confused, and frustrated. My wife felt the same way, and our 20 month old son was crying and cranky.

With all that tension instead of getting in a huge fight, we decided to take a mutual BIG breath, go get dinner at Ruby Tuesdays (we love that place) and just go home. Once home we started looking at all the pamphlets and flyers and just did not see anything we both loved. So I decided to start looking on the internet.

I have always been wary of furniture shopping online because I am a “feel it” kind of person and like to actually touch and sit on any furniture I buy. But we agreed to look at a few sites together. After about 20 minutes we came to a site called American Drew Furniture. Both of us found a few different sets we really liked pretty quickly. It was a first in a long day of furniture shopping. The one set we REALLY liked was the Advocate Collection. Everything looked stylish, rich, and classy. Kind of a mix of modern style with a classic feel.

We are going to get more information about this set and have a representative call us. I will report back with more details once we speak with the rep and post pictures if we decide to make the purchase. The end result of our long long long day of driving around and wasting gas money was that we accomplished more in 1 hour looking online and doing our research that way.

My wife has her real estate license and sells homes on the side. “On the side” means whenever she has time after working at her regular full time job.

For the longest time all she heard was how bad the market was and how many homes were sitting empty on the market and could not find buyers. Well while that might have been true what she has found is that there still are MANY people looking to buy homes. If anything what has happened is that everything has shifted from a “sellers market” to a “buyers market”. (more…)

This is a little bit of a rant since I paid my bills tonight and am left with no money. Literally zero dollars. I’m not sure who is going to win the election this year. I’m even more unsure about which candidate in the White House will really be better for my actual bank account. But one thing I do know is that gas prices keep going up and down each week and barely filing up the tank empties out my wallet. Every trip to the grocery store seems to cost more and more while the product sizes continue to shrink. It is incredibly frustrating. With the rising costs of EVERYTHING these days any way to save money is a positive one to me.

So we have been doing everything and anything to save money. This includes reevaluating everything in our lives where we spend even one penny. No more going out to eat multiple times per week. Less spending money on clothing or extra shoes until absolutely necessary. Carpooling whenever possible. Switching health clubs to one that is closer to home (less gas) and cheaper per month. (more…)